[Marxism] A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan

[Louis Proyect]

A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan
Militia Operates a Parallel Government

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 20, 2008; A01

KABUL, Sept. 19 -- Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a 
furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out 
hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at 
night and concentrated attacks in the southern rural regions of its 
ethnic and religious heartland.

Today it is a larger, better armed and more confident militia, 
capable of mounting sustained military assaults. Its forces operate 
in virtually every province and control many districts in areas 
ringing the capital. Its fighters have bombed embassies and prisons, 
nearly assassinated the president, executed foreign aid workers and 
hanged or beheaded dozens of Afghans.

The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure 
that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and 
officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents 
letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 
24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident 
faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage.

"This is not the Taliban of Emirate times. It is a new, updated 
generation," said Waheed Mojda, a former foreign ministry aide under 
the Taliban Islamic Emirate, which ruled most of the country from 
1996 to 2001. "They are more educated, and they don't punish people 
for having CDs or cassettes," he said. "The old Taliban wanted to 
bring sharia, security and unity to Afghanistan. The new Taliban has 
much broader goals -- to drive foreign forces out of the country and 
the Muslim world."

In late 2001, U.S. forces made common cause with ethnic groups in 
Afghanistan's north to overthrow the Taliban, in response to Osama 
bin Laden's use of the country as a base. Hamid Karzai was tapped as 
president by the United States and other powers, then elected to the 
job. In the early years, much of the deeply conservative Muslim 
country was largely peaceful and secure.

Over the past two years, the Taliban's revival has been fueled by 
fast-growing popular dissatisfaction with Karzai's government, which 
has failed to bring services and security to much of the country. 
Deepening public resentment against civilian deaths caused by U.S. 
and NATO alliance airstrikes is another factor.

No one here believes that the insurgents, estimated at 10,000 to 
15,000 fighters, are currently capable of seizing the capital of 
Kabul or toppling the government, which is backed by more than 
130,000 international troops. But a series of spectacular urban 
attacks in recent months, notably the bombing of the Indian Embassy 
and an armed assault on a parade reviewing stand where Karzai sat, 
have turned Kabul into a maze of bunkers and barricades that drive 
officialdom ever farther from the public.

In many regions a short drive from the capital, some of them 
considered safe even six months ago, residents and officials said the 
Taliban now controls roads and villages, patrolling in trucks and 
recruiting new fighters. Its members execute government employees, 
bomb and burn cargo trucks on the highway, and search bus passengers 
for foreign passports and cellphones programmed with official numbers.

"Our staff members don't want to commute to the capital anymore," 
said Nader Nadery, an official of the Afghan Independent Human Rights 
Commission. "They say, 'If the Taliban find my cellphone and call 
you, please tell them I am a shopkeeper.' " The Taliban is "creating 
an environment of fear, and it is working very well, because the 
people have no hope of being protected if they stand up against 
them," Nadery added.

Abdul Jabbar, a former anti-Soviet guerrilla commander and a member 
of parliament from Ghazni province, said he no longer dares visit his 
home district. Interviewed in Kabul, he said Taliban leaders asked 
him to leave the government and join their cause, but he refused and 
now fears being killed. Last week, three Ghazni residents were hanged 
by the Taliban, which called them government spies.

"The other day, a Taliban commander called me and said I should come 
help him to free Afghanistan from the foreigners," Jabbar recounted. 
"I asked him, 'What do you want me to do? Kill a teacher? Kidnap an 
engineer? Capture a U.N. vehicle?' The people are not happy about the 
Taliban, but the government is weak, and the foreign forces have not 
brought us security. What choice do we have?"

In Wardak, the next province toward Kabul along a highway that is 
under constant Taliban attack, residents said they now ask relatives 
from the capital not to travel there for weddings or funerals.

Roshanak Wardak, the only private obstetrician in the region, said 
that since last spring, Taliban leaders have recruited dozens of 
young men from her town. Wardak, who is also a legislator, said 
people in her province may not like the Taliban, but they relate to 
those in the movement as fellow Afghans and Muslims, at a time of 
growing public disenchantment with U.S. and NATO military forces.

"Their popularity is increasing day by day, because the government 
has done nothing for our province," she said. "They take our innocent 
boys and tell them Islam is in danger. They offer them money and 
weapons. Now everyone is becoming a Talib. It is a great game, and 
they are the fuel."

As in Ghazni, many of the Taliban supporters in Wardak are Pashtuns, 
members of the country's largest ethnic group. They believe that 
rival ethnic groups unfairly rule the country with the help of 
foreign soldiers. Though Karzai is a Pashtun, he is viewed in Taliban 
ranks as a traitor to his religion and community.

One aspect of the game the Taliban now clearly dominates is the 
propaganda war over battlefield victories, defeats and casualties. 
Once composed of largely illiterate fighters and clerics who shunned 
modern technology as un-Islamic, the Taliban now uses a variety of 
high-tech means to communicate its version of events, often far 
faster than its adversaries.

This issue has crystallized with the controversy over civilian 
casualties inflicted by U.S. and NATO airstrikes, especially a 
village bombing last month near Herat in western Afghanistan. 
Although civilian deaths have been frequent and real, officials say 
the Taliban quickly broadcasts exaggerated tolls, stoking public 
anger, while foreign military officers may take days to respond.

"We are definitely not winning the information war, and we have to 
reverse that," said Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief 
spokesman for NATO forces here.

He said the Taliban uses such tactics as hiding in farm compounds, 
dressing dead fighters in civilian clothes and then denouncing 
foreign forces for bombing villagers. "They don't have to bother with 
the truth," Blanchette said.

Today's Taliban also has a much greater degree of formal 
organization. The old Taliban was disastrous at governing, and 
ministries were run by barefoot mullahs who scribbled orders on 
scraps of paper. The new Taliban structure has councils for each area 
of governance, appoints officials in controlled areas and confers 
swift justice for crimes and disputes.

One Afghan journalist said he recently visited the capital of Logar 
province, less than an hour's drive south of Kabul, where the Taliban 
now wields enormous power. He said a man had walked into a Logar 
radio station and politely introduced himself to the astonished 
manager as the new provincial spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

According to Mojda and others, the Taliban is still led by Mohammad 
Omar, a village cleric who headed the 1996-2001 administration and 
has been a fugitive since its overthrow. Some former leaders hold 
senior posts in the new movement, although many have been killed. The 
rank-and-file fighters are a mix of old members and new recruits.

Their statements focus on ridding Afghanistan of foreign occupiers 
and incompetent leaders. Although they use Islam to motivate 
followers, they regularly violate what people here consider to be 
basic Islamic tenets against such things as the murder of women and 
trafficking in opium.

Their predecessors used harsh punishments to instill law and order 
but were often pious Muslims. This year, the insurgents have killed 
teachers, mayors, policemen, truck drivers, doctors, female aid 
workers and Muslim clerics.

"These people claim to be Muslims, but they are nothing more than 
terrorists," said Abdul Razzak Qureshi, police chief of Paghman, a 
district in the mountains west of Kabul. Last week he showed a 
visiting journalist a trove of land mines and explosive devices that 
his officers had found planted beside roads and in culverts in the 
past several months.

One such device was detonated last week under a vehicle carrying 
Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province, near his home in 
Paghman. He died instantly, along with two bodyguards and a driver.

In separate interviews, residents of Paghman, a pretty area in the 
hills with wildflowers, birches and breezy picnic spots, said they 
had unhappy memories of Taliban rule and hoped it would not return. 
So far, the insurgents have not emerged in daylight there, but 
Razzak, the police chief, said he was unsure how long his force of 
147 officers could continue to protect a sprawling district of 186 
villages that borders Taliban-controlled Wardak.

"The Taliban used to have nothing, but now they have more modern 
weapons than we do," he said. "Our people feel safe for now, but just 
over the border they operate freely and have their own checkpoints. 
If they decide to come here one day, there is nothing I can do to stop them."